Summary: While aspirin is generally a safe drug, and extremely effective, with over 50 million US adults taking it everyday for cardiovascular disease prevention, even a very small incidence of side-effects can have major implications. In terms of preventing heart attacks, strokes or cardiovascular deaths no clinical trial has identified an aspirin dose more efficacious than 75 to 81mg daily. Although there is no dose of aspirin that doesn't increase the risk of GI toxicity or bleeding, greater doses of aspirin are consistently associated with a greater risk.
